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Chapter 10: Facing Demons
Bobby watched the boy stare off into space and prayed to God the fear he was feeling inside didn't show on his face. He couldn't let Craig know he was unsure of what he was doing. Was this right? Was this the best way to deal with Craig right now? He'd been to hell and back and now Bobby was planning on making him tell them about every single minute of it. He was gonna make him tell him everything that son of a bitch did to him, every touch, every word he spoke, and he was going to have to act like an ass with him to get him to say it. He didn't want this, he was trying to think of another way to get the same results, but he couldn't think of anything else. If they waited Craig out, the boy would pull further into himself and hide from it. The longer they left him to himself the easier it would be for him to bury every thing deeper, letting it eat away at him, Bobby knew that, and he couldn't stand to watch his little brother being eaten alive inside. Silently, in the back of his mind he begged his mother to tell him what the hell to do right then. What was he supposed to do to make it better?
He had to have some grasp of what he was dealing with. What Macks did and said to Craig was a complete mystery, but it had changed something inside of him. It was as if the light in his soul had gone out and that was more than Bobby could stand. The idea that Macks had put his hands on his little brother was almost more than he could stand, but this went deeper than that and he had to find out why. He had to know details before he could make it right and it wasn't going to be easy, it was going to be the hardest thing he'd done in a long while.
"I need a beer." Jack muttered and turned to walk through the dining room to the kitchen.
"Yeah, bring one for me too, would you?" Bobby asked without looking away from the boy lying on the couch.
"It's barely noon." Angel muttered.
"It's close enough." Bobby commented.
"Bring one for me too Jack?" Angel leaned forward in his chair to call out to Jack who was already out of sight.
Bobby kept his stare fixed on the teenager in front of him. He wondered just what kind of thoughts were running through his head right then. What the hell was he so afraid of? He knew some facts, not details, and trying to put some kind of picture to it seemed to be impossible. How could he possibly imagine what one second in Macks' presence had felt like for the kid? That man had stolen his childhood from him, and though Craig hadn't told him details, no one had told him details, he had an idea of the things that Macks had done to him. The man had killed his mother, in front of him when he was six. He'd tried to kill Craig, a small boy, and had nearly succeeded from what Bobby had been able to piece together, but he knew so little about what had happened.
Hell, he didn't even know what the son of a bitch looked like, not really. He had chased him through the snow and ice, and had watched as Angel put a bullet in the son of a bitch while he was diving for Craig, trying to grab hold of him before he was pulled into the water. Macks had spun around when the bullet impacted, but his face was nothing more than a blur in his mind. He was sure Angel hadn't gotten a good view of it either, not as quickly as that moment had played out on the dock, it would have been impossible.
To think that that a psycho like that could still be alive and out there somewhere watching them, making an attempt to get close to the kid was bad enough, but to know it was possible and not even know what he looked like seemed to make it worse. How was he supposed to keep his family, especially Craig, safe from a threat that he couldn't even identify?
How was he supposed to know if the next total stranger to walk past him on the street was Adam Macks? For all he knew he'd talked to the man and didn't even know it. A bum on the street asking for a handout, or a customer behind him in the line at the store; he was around strange people every day in different places. For all he knew Adam Macks had been standing next to him at some point in time and he never would have known it. Angel could have had contact with him without knowing, or Jerry. Hell, Camille and the girls weren't safe, Sofi wasn't safe.
Jack and Craig he could keep cooped up in the house away from the public, safe from that threat, but he wouldn't be able to do that for much longer. Jack had snuck out with Angel just the night before, and they could both have been followed by the threat he was trying to keep them safe from. As his mind pondered all of this, trying to give Craig the chance to stop shaking and crying, he was sure he could hear his mother's voice, barely a whisper, right next to him, telling him exactly what he needed to do.
Craig seemed to be lost in thought, or trying to block out the presence of his brothers, Bobby wasn't sure which it was. He was still crying, and Bobby could see his body trembling, as if he was terrified. His heart constricted hard, and he had second thoughts about what he was about to do. He turned and looked at Angel. "Do me a favor and keep him on this couch. I'll be right back." He spoke quickly before he lost his nerve.
He stood as Angel nodded his head, and walked to the stairs. He moved up them two at a time and went to Jack's room, heading straight for the closet. He wasn't sure why his own hand was shaking as he opened the door, reaching to the shelf above and shoving some boxes to the side to reveal the box he'd stashed up there a week earlier. He pulled it down and cradled it in his arms, looking at the paper pads inside. He could tell most of them had been used by a small child; the paper was colored and seemed to have a rainbow effect along the edges. They gave away the age that Craig had been when he'd first started drawing his memories out on paper to share with his mother. The others in the box were more like the sketch pad Craig carried around with him now, as if his life depended on having it close to him.
Bobby hadn't understood it at first, but it was making more sense to him now, and he was sure the books of paper in that box were going to hold some clues to what was going on in the kid's head right then. It was about time Craig learned to share with his brothers. It was about time all those fucking memories came out and were dealt with. Hiding them away in books of paper wasn't doing him any good, and if they started with these, maybe the new memories that were eating away at him would be easier to pull out of him. More importantly, Adam Macks' face was going to be in these pages, he was sure of that. He had to know the face of the evil that had touched his little brother and fucked up his family's lives.
Bobby left the closet door hanging open and headed back down to the living room. Angel was taking a long gulp from a bottle of beer, and Jack was standing next to him with a beer in each hand.
Bobby walked over to the coffee table and dropped the box onto it with a slight thud. It was enough to pull Craig's eyes away from whatever he'd managed to fix his gaze on in his attempt to not look at anyone else. Bobby reached for his beer from Jack and took a long drink while watching Craig turn his sights on the box.
Bobby watched as a shadow seemed to cross over the boy's face. His features were unreadable, but the look in his eyes was fear. Bobby glanced at Angel's and Jack's puzzled expressions and drew in a deep breath. "I figured the best place for us to start is the beginning."
Jack stepped up to the box and looked inside. He reached his free hand into the box and picked up one of the pads. He looked at the cover. "They're dated. That's Mom's printing." He muttered.
"Yeah, let's get them in order and start with the first one." Bobby nodded and reached into the box himself. He picked up a pad and looked at the date. "They should be close to being in order; I kept the dates as straight as I could when I put them in the box." He held the cover up to face Jack, who took it.
Jack took on the task of going through the box and putting the dates in order. He put the first two on the coffee table, but set the other's up on their side in the box, the earliest dates in the front. Angel slid his chair up next to the box and picked a couple of the pads up, looking at the dates in an attempt to help Jack, but he seemed to be making the sorting more difficult. Jack grabbed the paper books from him and smacked at one of his hands. "Just leave it be. I'll get it." He took a drink from his beer and shook his head.
Craig sat up slowly, his eyes fixed on the pads on the table. His brain seemed to be locked on their presence. Bobby wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Craig had wanted to go through these pads before, but now he looked as if the contents were taboo to him. The man wished the boy would say something that would let him know which direction the sketch pads were pulling him. Was this the right move, or was it foolish? Was he going to be helping the kid or making it all worse?
Bobby took another drink of his beer and walked around the table. He sat down on the couch next to Craig and reached for the pad of paper with the first date. "June, ninety eight," He read the neatly printed date as he studied the cardboard cover. It was brightly colored with pictures of crude looking cars and trees sprinkled around the edges. "How old were you when Mom brought you home? Seven?" He looked at Craig. "She didn't bring you home until August though." He commented. "She spent a lot of time with you when you were at St. Vincent's, didn't she?"
Craig looked at Bobby and the tears seemed to have started a new surge. "You can't that. They're mine." His voice sounded weak, and small.
"You wanted to look at them before, remember? Now we're gonna look through all of them. When we're done with this box I'll go get the others, and we're gonna go through every single one of them, right up to the one in that desk." Bobby pointed to his right, to the desk tucked away in the corner.
"You can't do that! They're mine!" Craig's voice came out with more force than Bobby expected. He sounded pissed, but more than that he sounded panicked, as if the secrets in the books had the ability to reach out and harm him in some way.
Bobby felt his heart tearing in two. He couldn't back out of this. He had to see what was on the papers in front of him. He had to make Craig explain them to him and make him deal with them. There was going to be no more hiding his memories in books of paper and tucking them away safely in some closet, playing the game that they were would be harmless there. They weren't harmless; they were like demons that had to be exorcised from their home.
Bobby drew in a deep breath and reached over to Craig with his left hand, grabbing his arm and pulling him close to him. "You want to tell me about these?" He acted as if he was able to ignore the desperation written all over the boy's face, though it was ripping his heart out. "Come on, you tell me about the pictures. Explain them to me, to all of us." He waved the pad in his other hand towards Angel and Jack. "Let us in on your secrets Craig, we can't help you if you don't let us." He kept his voice steady and firm, trying to show his brother that there wasn't a choice for him, he was going to talk, and he was going to tell them everything they needed to know, beginning with the first picture he'd ever put down on the paper.
Craig tried to pull away from Bobby, tried to move away from the pads of paper that seemed to be too close to him. Bobby gave him a hard jerk, not willing to give into his own desire to take the easy way out of the whole mess. He was going to get this boy to talk, one way or another, and at the same time he was going to find out what the devil his self looked like.
Craig felt the panic twisting up in his gut. He felt his head trying to swim with dizziness and he felt the need to get the hell away from his brother, away from the memories laying on his lap, all closed up inside that pad of paper. He could feel the pressure inside building up, his defenses beginning to fail him. The fear was building, the memories were surging, and he wanted to lash out at Bobby and fight him until he released his hold on him so that he could get away from the past that was about to be opened up before him. Another part of him wanted to shrink back into the couch and disapear from the world. He didn't want anyone to look at him, or see him, or know what he was, what his father had turned him into.
Jack seemed to sense what Craig was feeling, and stepped carefully around the table, sliding onto the couch on Craig's free side, successfully sandwiching him in. He rested an arm on the back of the couch behind Craig and leaned in close to him. "You remember what I told you before? Remember when I told you what I do when things get hard and I start feeling scared?" He kept his voice quiet as he tilted his head down closer to Craig. "I play my music. I talk to my brothers a lot too. They help me more than anything else. They did more for me than anything else I ever tried, and believe me, I tried a lot of shit to get away from the memories I got in my head. You gotta trust your brothers Craig; you gotta give us a chance."
Craig turned and looked at Jack, the checker game they had played came back to his mind, and the talk that had taken place during the game rushed into his head, every word, every emotion that he'd felt, and the feeling that he really wasn't alone in the way he was feeling. Jack knew how he felt, he had been through it, and he'd survived it. Did that mean he could survive it? Could he survive Bobby opening up his sketch pads and reaching into his most horrible memories? He wasn't sure if he could face his brothers if they knew all of the horrible things he'd done and seen. It wasn't exactly the same with him and Jack. Jack had been at the mercy of a stranger, not his own flesh and blood father.
"You can't run from it, remember? I tried that and it didn't work. You can't hide from it either. You gotta face it, and you gotta let us help." Jack's voice remained calm and quiet.
"Hell, you have no idea what kind of hell Cracker Jack put us through." Angel laughed quietly as he moved from his chair, stepped over the table and sat on it, careful not to side on the pads on top of it. "He was our little brother though, and we would have done anything to try to make him feel better." He spoke seriously that time. "And we'd do it all over again, and we'd do the same shit all over again for you too, broken bones and all." He held his splinted arm up.
Craig thought about the words Jack had spoken during their checker game. His life had been close to his own in so many ways. The only real difference was that it was his own father that had stolen his innocence when he was small. It was his own father that had broken his spirit and stolen his soul from him. Jack had been at the mercy of a foster father, a prisoner in his home. He'd been locked in a closet, the same as Craig had been. He'd been forced to do the same things, and he'd said that Nate had broken his spirit, just as Adam Macks had done with him. He turned and looked up at Jack. "Did he steal your soul?" He asked weakly, unable to keep the questsion in. If Jack understood the question, then maybe there was hope for him to get past it, like Jack had.
Jack seemed to lose his breath for a moment. He finally drew in air deeply and shook his head. "No. I thought he did, but I found out that's something no one can steal from you. It's always there, inside you. It might hide for a little while, to keep from hurting so bad, but it never leaves you, no matter what you think." Jack spoke carefully.
Bobby reached up and took hold of Craig's chin, pulling his face around to look at him. "Is that what you think that son of a bitch did? You think he stole your soul from you?" He asked carefully.
Craig opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He wanted to tell Bobby that was exactly what happened, he'd felt his soul being ripped out of him when he'd finally given up fighting against the will of the man who held so much control over him; but no words formed on his lips and his throat tightened up on him.
"Craig, he can't take that from you, we kept that right here with us the whole time we were looking for you." Bobby shook his head. "We kept it right here, safe and sound." He let go of Craig's chin and moved his hand to his own chest, patting carefully over his heart. "We always keep that safe for you, don't you know that?"
Craig felt his chest swell up, and he felt a million thoughts trying to get out in the form of words, but it only came out as an agonizing, long, drawn out sob. He felt Bobby grab him and pull him close, sliding his arm around him. He felt his face fall into Bobby's shirt and he got the scent of the laundry detergent that he had come to associate with his brother, and the security he provided. "He hurt me." He cried out. "He put me in the closet and the bugs were crawling on me." He let the words come out. He was confusing the most resent torture his father had inflicted with the past events that had formed the nightmare of his childhood long before he'd been a Mercer, and the voice that came out seemed to belong to the small child that had endured life as Adam Macks' son all those years before. The wall he'd put up to block in the memories and the confusing emotions seemed to give, crumbling under the pressure. His right hand reached for his left arm to dig at the thousands of tiny legs he could feel moving around there, itching at his skin.
Bobby was quiet for a long moment. "Did you draw that in one of the books?" He asked carefully. "Can you show it to me?" He pulled his arm tight around the boy, grabbing hold of his right wrist and pulling it back so that he couldn't dig at himself.
"I can't." Craig shook his head, squeezing his eyes closed as the memory of the closet came back to the front of his mind, but it wasn't the closet from his younger years, it was the one most recent, the one he woke up in with his head hurting so bad.
Bobby gave him a few moments before pulling him back, and making him look towards the pad in his lap. "Come on, you can show me what's in the book, can't you? You tell all about it." His arm encircled Craig around his shoulders, holding him in a way that there was no chance of turning away from what Bobby wanted him to see. "We'll start at the beginning, and we'll work all the way up to right here and now. That way we can really help you, with all of it. Cause we can't help you with what he did to you last week unless we know everything Craig, do you understand that?"
Craig shook his head slowly. "I don't want to look at those. I don't want to remember." He shook his head. "It's too hard."
Bobby let the pad rest in his lap and opened up the cover, revealing the first page. A crude crayon rendition of what looked like a woman and a man standing side by side on the page stared back at them.
Angel leaned over and looked at the thick blue and red markings on the page. "Those don't look too fucking scary to me." He looked at Craig, "Who is that?" He pointed to the figure wearing a dress.
"My mom," Craig muttered as he looked at the work his six year old self had managed all those years ago when he'd been secluded from other people at St. Vincent's. His mind seemed to spin back in time, to when he'd drawn it. He hadn't been crying like a small child, he hadn't even been thinking about the terrible thing that had happened to his mother. He'd been remembering a time when his mother and father seemed to like each other, just a little, and had talked to each other, a time before his father had been so bad. He'd always been scary, and he'd always hurt him, but there had been a whisper of a memory of him seeming almost nice to him and his mother. Maybe it had been him wishing how things had been more than an actual memory, he wasn't sure, but that's what he'd been feeling when he drew the picture.
"Who is this?" Angel pointed to the other figure on the page.
"My dad," Craig felt his voice catch in his throat. Somehow the tears were slacking off a little. The emotions were loose inside him now, but he wasn't feeling the panic that he was so used to overtaking him, in fact his mind seemed to be clouding over slightly, and a comforting, warming numbness seemed to be rising inside of him. "He used to give her flowers." He let the words come out weakly. "That was before he started coming to my room."
Bobby turned the page, and Craig stared at the large scribble of solid black crayon that covered most of the page. "What was that supposed to be?" He asked quietly.
"That's my dad." Craig's stare fixed on the set of legs that stuck out at the bottom of the black cloud he'd covered the image with. "He started coming to my room." He felt the pain from his father's touch penetrate his whole body and he tried to pull away from Bobby. "I don't want to look." He sounded small and helpless, even to himself, and though he normally would be mentally kicking himself in the ass for sounding like a small child, he didn't care at that moment. He just wanted to get away from the memories the drawings were stirring up inside his brain.
"Craig, we're gonna do this." Bobby didn't let him move. "Don't make it harder than it has to be." His voice was loud and stern sounding.
Craig felt his entire body shiver as Bobby turned him back towards the picture.
"He came to your room." Bobby looked at him for a moment and looked back at the scribbling, solid black. "What did he do Craig?" He asked.
"He hurt my throat." Craig muttered, not able to think of any other words. "And he hurt my…" Craig's voice caught in his throat and he couldn't complete his thoughts as the memory came back.
Bobby reached up to Craig's face and pulled it up to look at him. "He's not here. He's can't do anything now. I'm here, and I am not going to let him get close to you again. Do you understand that? But you have to tell me what the hell that son of a bitch did. You gotta tell me what he did to you when you were little, and you gotta tell me everything that happened last week. I can't help you if you don't talk to me. So we are going to go through all of these pictures, and you are going to talk about them. When we're done, I'll know what to do to keep your safe. Okay?" He was using that voice, the same one he seemed to be able to pull out when he could tell Craig was feeling small and helpless; the voice that gave him a sense of being safe and protected.
Craig nodded his head slowly and swallowed at the tears that were still coming. They weren't wracking at his insides the same as they had been earlier, but they wouldn't stop flowing. He wasn't going to get out of this; he didn't have the energy inside him to fight against it, though he would have if the drugs he'd been given a short time before hadn't started to take effect. He watched as Bobby turned the page once more…